


Escape & Capture

by Axolotl7



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Beating, Captivity, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture, Torture, Ward is a dick, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-04-18 12:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4706333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axolotl7/pseuds/Axolotl7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between seasons 2 and 3.</p><p>Melinda May's holiday does not go exactly to plan... </p><p> <em>"She wakes to the feel of cold steel on her wrists and ankles. Tight enough that the edges scrape hard into her skin - tight enough that she can’t escape." </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

Her heart was pounding against her ribs as she ran.

The forest was silent, seemingly frozen in time, but she couldn’t afford to be. She had to lose her pursuers but stealth was not an option. The snow upon the ground made evasion a ridiculous notion, her progress obvious to anyone that might come across her trail from the disturbance of the otherwise pristine white carpet.

The trees were bare of leaves, providing little to no cover, and their thicker branches were high up in the canopy, making it almost impossible to climb one even if she could hide her trail.

Her pursuers were too close to take the chance of laying a trail and back tracking.

So she ran.

 

She hoped that speed would keep her ahead of them for long enough that they’d maybe grow bored. She knew that was unlikely. They were far too interested in her capture to just give up.

The forest appeared never-ending but she knew that at some point the trees would clear and she’d find herself on a roadway or the outskirts of a village – no forest in the northern counties was so large that she could run for weeks in a straight line before encountering civilisation. Assuming of course that they hadn’t transported her elsewhere...

She breathed deeply. The temperature was more or less what she’d felt outside the base the week prior to her capture. The snow littered ground approximately as deep. The tree types similar to those found locally. Yes, she concluded, she was probably still in the northern counties. Her captors hadn’t taken her far before she’d escaped.

 

Her right foot splashed into a small stream she hadn’t seen under the snow covering its banks and she caught herself hands and a knee on the opposite side. Water. It’d been hours since she’d had water but did she have time to stop? 

Well, no use wasting time thinking about it she chided herself. She crouched over her wet foot to scoop cupped hands through the freezing trickle. It was gloriously fresh, soothing her parched throat. But there was a small crash in the near distance. Her captors were catching up to her, she had to move on now.

 

She’d caught glimpses only of her pursuers, enough to know there were at least two of them but little more. She’d kept up a fast pace trying to outrun them but each time she slowed, just as she’d begin to wonder if she’d out run them, she’d spot one of them and be forced to flee again. She cursed at the lack of cover in these woods, the majority of the trees bare through the winter, leaving her nowhere to hide and no time to rest.

The burn in her muscles told her she’d been running for a few hours. She knew she should have taken it slower – better to get farther steadier than to push and falter earlier – but it is too late for recriminations now. 

 

Uneven ground or exhaustion trips her. A cry escapes as a protruding branch slices through her calf when the ground rushes up to greet her. Her eyes water at the pain and a sob tries to escape but she clamps her jaw down to prevent it – she doesn’t need to give her pursuers any more clues about her location. She can’t waste time sitting here trying to manage the pain. She doesn’t have the time. 

She looks down. It’s a small gash, two inches or so across, but it’s bleeding heavily. That’s both good and bad her mind supplies. Bad that she’s losing the blood and it’ll make it hard to continue if she doesn’t take a least a few minutes to try to bind it. Good that the blood should wash residue from the branch out, naturally cleaning the wound.

She’s little clothing as it is for these harsh conditions, wishes uselessly that her captors had thought to take her when she’d been wearing more, but she has to prioritise – the wound needs binding more than she needs the top for warmth right now. In a few hours, if she’s still alive, that may change. She doesn’t have the time to think on it too long, she’s lost track of how long she’s been down but her pursuers will no doubt reach her momentarily. She whips her top over her head, tearing off the long sleeves before redressing. A compromise - the sleeves will do as a quick bandage for now. 

She manages to lever herself back up right but she’s forced to proceed at a walk, placing feet deliberately one in front of the other, as her muscles complain and her head swims. 

She’s only managed about five minutes before her pursuers are upon her again and she’s forced back into a hobbling run, accepting and moving beyond the pain as adrenaline surges through her once more. 

This is insane. She is exhausted. She can’t believe her pursuers are still chasing. She considered herself to be fit but even her body was struggling, failing her now after such a prolonged dash through this tricky environment. Her pursuers should be dropping back.

Instead they are gaining on her.

 

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	2. Chapter 2

May  
She’s not sure what happens between one step and the next but one of her pursuers is suddenly ahead of her and she’s slamming on the breaks to dart back the other way. It’s so impossible that she almost worries she’s gotten turned around. Her sense of direction is normally excellent but there’s a chance that the exhaustion has clouded her mind. 

The woman approaching from behind her convinces her otherwise. He has managed to get ahead of her somehow. He doesn’t even seem out of breath so it’s unlikely that he’s overtaken her on foot. 

The woman is tall, blonde, beautiful. She could be a model with that figure but somehow her being here, in the middle of a snow covered forest, chasing down a prisoner makes that unlikely. Highly unlikely. An interesting character at first glance – deadly and happy would be the two words she’d use to describe this one were she asked. It’s a bizarre mixture. Her sharply focused eyes and cautiously wary movements tell of an assassin’s level of training whilst her widely smiling countenance gives the impression that she’s everybody’s friend. It’s a scarily good mask this one wears to hide her true intentions.

She moves like a predator, stalking, economical but ready. This one is a huntress.

The male on the other hand... is not. He’s older, hairline receding. Strong and fit enough if he’s trudging through the snow but he’s definitely not a fighter. He stomps out of balance, overextended on every other stride, a sulky child battering his way through the deep snow careless of where he treads. He will be the easier target.

 

“Her leg’s bleeding,” the male points out her injury to the other. She doubts somehow that they are concerned that she is injured. More likely they are identifying her weaknesses in order to exploit them. 

His facial expression mocks concern as he approaches her position slowly, hands out in the universal sign that there is no threat. She isn’t fooled. She knows he doesn’t need a visible weapon in hand to take her out. She watches his advance carefully but keeps the majority of her focus on the woman behind – she’s the bigger threat. He’s probably just a distraction.

“It’s fine. Probably just a scratch,” the woman tells him uncaring. That’s more the attitude she is expecting from her pursuers – anyone in the business of kidnapping and torture doesn’t care for their victims. 

“It’s not just a scratch if it’s still bleeding this heavily. She might need stitches.” The male actually seems to be concerned. Perhaps she can use this to her advantage. If he is unwilling for her to be hurt then she might be able to play upon that compassion, avoid too much damage as they torture her or co-operate long enough that he slips up and she can escape again.

He is almost to her position now and she has a split second decision to make as to how she plays it: defiant and fighting or scared and vulnerable? 

Her knee meets his chin as he kneels to look more closely at her leg, snapping his head back hard while the force sends him falling back into the snow. He should have seen it coming. If he’d had any form of combat training maybe he would have.

Defiant and fighting it is! Good - she hates playing scared and vulnerable.

She smirks across the slight clearing at the woman who has taken up an easy position far enough away to be out of range of attack. 

The male is groaning and muttering under his breath as he staggers back up to his feet, back towards her and completely uncaring of the danger she poses. Arrogant or incompetent. Either way it benefits her purposes. 

She shoots towards him without warning, throwing an arm down to strike the back of his right knee, driving him back down to the wet snow. She flings her arm up around his throat as he descends, locking it with her other elbow in a choke hold. He grabs at her arms instinctively seeking to pull them loose but her grip is absolute. She looks across the clearing at the woman, who is almost certainly the leader of the pair, and raises her voice to make her demands.

“Let me go and I’ll let you have him back alive,” she makes the offer but the woman only smiles, shrugging her shoulders with a tilt of her head, feigning unconcern that her partner is in imminent danger. Maybe she’s misread the situation.

“What if I don’t want him?” the woman taunts, strutting closer with a deadly swing to her hips. She moves dangerously. A woman trained in hand to hand combat. No, more likely in martial arts. She moves in balance, her steps choreographed, seemingly aware of the very undulations in the ground. She will be much harder to take down. It’s better to keep her distance than risk it, especially tired and injured as she is currently.

“If you didn’t want him, you’d have rushed me by now,” she replies. It’s true. She’d do exactly what the woman is now if an agent was held hostage – communicate, distract, move closer. It’s textbook.

“Maybe I don’t think you’ll hurt him?” the woman taunts. The woman has no idea what she’s capable of but she doesn’t want to take the steps necessary to prove otherwise – if she chokes him she ends up with a dead weight as a hostage, a dead weight she can’t carry, and if she moves to inflict any other injury she’ll lose the chokehold and she’s in no doubt that doing so will cue an attack from his partner. She tightens her hold, cutting off his air supply and feels him thrash against her as he attempts to gurgle something. She keeps her eyes locked on the woman, the real threat. She sees the woman’s stance shift infinitesimally, belying her words - she does want him kept alive. 

“Let me go,” she reissues the demand, certain now of having the upper hand. 

The woman sighs audibly, conceding, so she lets off the pressure. The woman gestures a hand to the forest in an after you motion as she speaks, “Alright. There’s the forest. Off you go again. But know that you’re only stalling the inevitable – we will catch you.” She seems almost unconcerned to be losing her prisoner once again.

Now she’s just got to work out the mechanics of this. She certainly isn’t going to just trust that they’ll let her walk out of here. As soon as she lets go of the male she loses her advantage but she can’t carry him with her, not far enough to make any difference anyway. 

“I want you bound so that you can’t immediately follow me. I’ll take him with me for the first half hour then I’ll release him and let him return to unbind you,” she instructs calmly. There that should give her enough time to get far enough away to make some progress actually escaping.

“What stops you from killing us both once we’re bound and at your mercy?” asks the woman, she’s smart this one.

“What stops me now?” she replies cockily but she knows within her own mind that there is a doubt there. The likelihood is that she’d lose a fight with these two as exhausted as she is currently.

“Think you can take me?” the woman smiles at her in challenge, unzipping her coat to increase manoeuvrability. She has no coat so nothing to remove that would impede her in a fight but the action is a startling reminder that she’s out here in the cold in very little clothing and her body shivers despite her attempts to hold it at bay. The woman’s eyes sharpen, she’s noticed the shiver.

“Know it,” she responds quickly. She needs to get moving again before the chill seeps further through her bones. Her wet pant leg has already frozen against her skin. Hyperthermia is almost as much a threat out here as her captors are. “I have all the advantage right here. Why take a chance?”

“You’re injured and you’re cold,” the woman states and she looks almost concerned about it. She doesn’t correct her. She’s right after all. “I’d rather take you in before you get hyperthermia so if you want to run again to keep warm I suggest you get going. I’ll even give you a twenty minute head start before we track you down.” Generous offer. She doesn’t believe it.

“Bind yourself,” she demands and her pursuer sighs audibly.

“The ties are in my front pocket,” the woman explains before reaching in and pulling out a cable tie slowly.

“Ankles and wrists,” she clarifies.

“You want me to sit in the snow,” the woman confirms almost petulantly, her lips narrowing into a thin line and eyes flashing a glare across the clearing at her. The woman could do with some lessons on keeping her emotions hidden. Her frustration is obvious and it’s a weakness to express it. As if a glare is going to change her mind.

She doesn’t answer verbally, they both know that the woman isn’t going to refuse and risk her partner’s life over a little cold. The woman barely hesitates despite her complaints, sitting in the deep snow with a huff probably at the cold and wet that will soon start to seep through her jeans.

She ties her ankles first, over thick combat boots. It’s not going to be a problem for the woman to escape those ties, she’ll simply remove the boots and slip much smaller feet from the insides, but it will still delay her. The woman binds her hands before her, pulling it taught with teeth. “Tighter,” she instructs and with a sigh the woman tightens it further. She’s not going closer to check if it’s tight enough, she knows bound hands do not make an opponent less dangerous.

“Move,” she instructs the male who has remained silent throughout, releasing him and stepping back quickly out of range of any reprisal. She’s surprised that he hasn’t struggled more. She would have. But then she’d probably not have let the attack happen in the first place. He’s lucky not to be dead. He needs a better partner to protect him if he’s to stay alive and keep doing this job. 

He rises to his feet slowly rubbing at his neck before turning to face her. He looks confused almost as he watches her. His gaze is too intense, assessing her, trying to read her. She wonders what he’s doing, worries that he’s about to unleash some weapon he has hidden beneath the folds of the large jacket. Or maybe that he’s inhuman, with some power to read her thoughts or control her mind. She takes a quick step backwards in retreat as the thought registered consciously. Then she’s running!

Running uncaring of the fact that she had planned to take him as a hostage, to delay them both at least an hour to give herself a head start on finding someone that could help her escape. She’s in flight mode, panic driving her actions as she dives through the untouched snow, feet landing awkwardly every few steps as tree roots and uneven ground encourage her to trip.

It takes a few minutes for her brain to catch up with the panic, for her to slow the mad bolt to a safer, more economical run. It wouldn’t do for her to fall again or twist an ankle and the risk of overtiring herself in a sprint is too great no matter her desire to get away.

She runs for so long without sign of her pursuers that she wonders whether the woman was serious about giving her a twenty minute head start. She almost dares to hope that they’ve given up the chase.

She hears the crash in the undergrowth nearby. Far too close.

The hairs stand to attention on the back of her neck as she spots a flash of dark brown through the bare tree trunks ahead of her before it’s gone again. She almost digs in her heels in sudden panic but forces herself onwards after a brief stutter. They can NOT be ahead of her again. Her mind is simply playing tricks on her.

Her heart’s pounding, blood rushing through her ears.

She thinks about changing course, about veering off on a different tangent, but there’s no way, simply no way that they could have gotten ahead of her again. If they’d a quinjet even in these well covered woods she’d have heard the engines, same with any vehicle and the undergrowth and deep snow makes it near impassable except on foot. There’s a conscious concern that these captors are inhuman, that they may possess supernatural powers maybe over time or increased speed. Possibly teleportation. They’ve seen it before.

She doesn’t have time to think of any other reason for their continued ability to keep overtaking her but there must be one.

At the back of her mind, she’s certain that there’s not.

“Stop or I shoot,” comes the male’s demand. He doesn’t sound even a little out of breath.

She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even turn around to acknowledge his presence behind her.

The male’s already shown he doesn’t want her injured, he’s unlikely to shoot her now. 

If they want her, they’re going to have to catch her.

 

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	3. Chapter 3

She veers off course immediately, keeps running but hits a wall of nothing. 

Hard.

It’s fortunate she was turned slightly to look back toward her pursuers so that she hit it with a shoulder first. She still stumbles back but she manages to keep her feet. She reclaims the step forwards cautiously, running her hands against the invisible wall that has appeared before her. Force shield of some kind. Great. She moves a step to the left, finds it extends that direction as well. Tries right, same result. She’s trapped by a shield that has erupted from seemingly nowhere. No, from them. They must have the device on their person. One of them. If she can get hold of it then she can turn it off. She turns to face the advancing enemy knowing there is no escape. She holds her head high, prideful, she is not cowed. She won’t give in to the fear that she feels at them blocking her escape. There’s always a way out. If there isn’t then she’ll make one.

They might have trapped her but they haven’t caught her yet.

 

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She takes a single small step forwards, more of a slide than a step, testing the extent of the force shield surrounding her. She almost exhales in relief - there is seemingly nothing preventing her from moving towards them. They should have been more cautious. 

A trapped animal is far more dangerous than one that can flee.

 

“Could you try not to choke me this time?” the male asks plaintively as he nears. It’s bizarre him addressing her as though she’s a friend he was roughhousing with but it’s not the first time this one has played the part of her friend. Deception is in his makeup. If she gets in close enough she’s not just choking him. This time she’s taking him down.

“And I am not sitting in the snow again for the record,” the woman adds as the pair move in closer, spreading out, attempting to position themselves to overwhelm her.

She can’t allow them to close in too much. She needs them far enough from one another that she has chance to take the male down before the woman is upon her. She dashes for the male without warning, leaping into the air bringing her feet forwards to connect with his chest, to send him flying back. Her feet meet only air as the woman covers the distance far more quickly than she’d imagined possible. Damn tall people! There’s a shock of impact that she ignores as she lands hard upon the ground before rising and spinning quickly to face what she expects to be the woman attacking in return... but the woman is not attacking. As thick arms come around her from behind she has an instant to respond, throwing back an elbow which connects sharply, loosening the arms around her so that she can spin back out of range and into a space to give her time to re-think. 

The male is asking hunched over cradling his ribs, the woman bent over him checking his condition whilst keeping a wary eye on her own movements. She hesitates to attack again until they separate. The ball is in their court if they want to capture her again anyway.

The two are conversing quietly, too quietly for her to make out, shooting her a quick look across the slight clearing every few seconds, which prevents her from advancing an attack. She re-tests the barrier, the press against her fingers tells her it’s still in place. She’s trapped but they seem to be unconcerned by the fact that she’s still not caught.

It’s… concerning.

 

It’s not like it’ll take anything more than a shot from an ICER to bring her down and get her re-secured whilst she’s unconscious, she knows that. It’s their go to tactic after all. She fights, she runs or escapes and they shoot her. She wakes and bides her time waiting for the opportunity to go through it all again. 

But she can’t not try.

Why these two haven’t already shot her down is a question mark in her mind. They've never been hesitant to do so before. She can only presume it’s a more detailed attempt to try to fool her into believing whatever lies they come up with next.

It was an ICER that brought her down the first time...

 

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FLASHBACK  
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She’d been on her way to the airport. Almost happy at the idea of moving everything off to one side for a few weeks of peace with the sun and sand as her only companions. There’s a lot she needs to think her way through – a LOT. From Phil’s lying to her the past year and her own questioning of his motives whilst working with Gonzales’ people and whether they really have lost the trust in their relationship for good... to Skye’s abrupt attack, her clear mistrust of her – she knows it’s mistrust of Shield but it doesn’t take away the fact that Skye doesn’t trust her, even after these last two years, even after all the training and the ... friendship she thought they were building... Skye doesn’t trust her. Because of Bahrain, because of what she did there. She needs to think it all through, needs to get her head back on straight and give herself time to organise her thoughts back into their careful little boxes. 

Time and space should give her perspective, let her work things out.

The black SUV six cars back from her and hovering in the left hand lane catches her attention again. It’s hardly an unusual vehicle for this area but it’s still one that stands out even in the heavy flow of traffic.

She’s probably just being paranoid. Superspy senses, as Skye would call them, are still on overdrive. The peace of lying on an almost deserted beach will let those relax. 

She takes the next exit just in case. She can drive on this road for a while then head back right in a few more junctions and still be in good time for her flight. It’s only a small detour.

The SUV doesn’t jump lanes to follow her and she smiles at her own foolishness as she indicates and pulls off the main highway. 

Then there are the less painful betrayals to think about, those and her failures to recognise yet more ‘team mates’ who were working undercover for someone else – Bobbi and Mac. What does it say when the one to be trusted is the paid mercenary? Sure Bobbi and Mac weren’t working for anything as dangerous as Hydra but she still should have seen it earlier. She should have learnt from Ward’s betrayal. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... three times? Yeah, she needs to think things through.

And there’s the SUV again. A flash off a black side in a glimpse in her side mirror, just peaking out behind a red lorry. It’s too unlikely to be a coincidence.

She reaches down into the hold all on the passenger seat with one hand, keeping her eyes on the road as she struggles with the zip until it’s open enough for her to rifle through. The vehicle isn’t making any attempt to close in on her so she’s in no particular hurry. It’s probably just tailing her with instructions not to engage.

She smiles as her hand finds the cold muzzle of the gun she decided last minute to pack just in case and pulls it from the bottom of the bag.

One engagement coming right up.

 

She swerves off the road last minute to the sound of blaring horns, bounces down a track really not made for speed and chuckles at the thrill as her adrenaline spikes at the fight with the wheel to keep bounding tyres firmly between the grass verges.

Her pursuer is no longer playing hide and seek as it comes into full view directly behind her.

She pushes them to pursue her at speed down the small track roads and ninety degree turns. It’s a more enjoyable way to start her vacation than she’s planned but she’s always adapted well to change.

She almost laughs out loud as she takes one turn a little too fast, wrenching the steering wheel hard back the other way as the vehicle skids losing traction, flinging her stomach into another county as it pulls back hard, bounces off the uneven tuff lining the sideway and back onto the dusty track.

It’s exhilarating!

She can sense that her pursuers are not having quite the same time of it as she’s steadily gaining ground on them. Poor suckers. They need to live for now and enjoy life a little bit more! Take a few chances!

She’s on the breaks before her mind consciously registers the black vehicle directly in front of her, blocking the one lane track completely. The car struggles to stop, whining as the breaks lock onto tires that simply skid in the dust, momentum carrying her despite all attempts to bring the thing to a halt. She turns the wheel as a last ditch attempt to control the inevitable collision, trying to wrench the car to hit on the right away from her position. She takes up a stronger grip on the gun – she’s going to need it – and covers her face with her arms bracing for the crash.

 

The shock of the impact makes everything silent for an infinitesimally small moment...

Then the noise hits – the crack and screech as two metal objects collide with force, the alarms blaring out loudly in the otherwise peaceful quiet of farmland, the boom-hiss off airbags inflating throughout.

She wrestles her way out of the seatbelt, slaps arms against the almost suffocating airbag pressing her to the seat and writhes until she can reach finger tips to the door handle. Once unlatched, she kicks the door open wide and allows her body to tumble out and down to the ground. 

She crouches to assess the situation. There’s no cover other than too sparse bushes to the sides of the road and open farmland beyond – there’s no point moving then. She’s limited cover from the car and its open door. It will have to do for now. The vehicle she hit is a mess from the front but she doubts anyone was still inside when they collided, the open doors suggest that they bailed out beforehand. Two doors, one each side. Probably two hostiles to take out.

She crouches down low, gets her head down to sight under the car – everyone always tries to aim over a vehicle, a bonnet or a door. They so rarely go down under the car to aim. A bullet to the leg makes a target almost as good as down from a threat perspective. She can clear up later. Two pairs of legs, as expected. One almost nearing the tailgate of her vehicle. He’s first. She can’t afford to let him round the corner or she’ll be directly in his line of fire. She pulls and the screams confirm he’s down even before he hits the floor. The second is rounding the front, more cautiously now that she’s hit one of them. His hesitation only gives her more time to aim. He falls with an oath more than a scream, lands sideways on the ground. It exposes him to the head shot she takes.

She’s up quickly and around the front of the car. Hydra - the deceased’s uniform proclaims in bold symbols. The second SUV is almost upon her position now as she rounds the corner to ascertain whether there is any hope of getting Hydra’s SUV up and running for her to use.

The second vehicle pulls to a stop approximately ten meters out, doors opening wide to both sides as booted feet land and take cover behind likely reinforced glass.

She’s batting the driver’s airbag out of the way to let her see into the console. The keys are still in the ignition. A minor blessing. 

“Surrender,” a metallic voice commands loudly from speakers assumed to be within the second vehicle. She ignores it – as if!

There’s a hail of bullets scattered from an automatic, pinging almost delicately off the side of her broken car. She doesn’t even duck – she’s well covered by the two vehicles between them. They’ll have to round the car to at least get a line of sight on her position.

She can just about reach her arm past to the ignition button. She presses and it stutters.

“Surrender,” the shout comes again. Another waste of breath.

Presses again. Come on! It tries with slightly more enthusiasm.

Then the feet stomp closer.

The engine roars to life beneath her hands. Yes!

The slightly heavier clunk of something heavy and metal landing close by is almost covered by the sounds of the engine as it chugs away and she presses the gas pedal to give it a little more and keep it running.

She’s not the time to climb up into the seat, change gear and reverse away from the sound that is almost certainly an explosive or gas canister of some kind. Split second decision - she abandons the car, runs towards its rear, away from the enemy.

It’s the right decision as she’s tossed up into the air by the force of the explosion behind her. Both vehicles are up in flames when she checks back over a shoulder. Then the second explodes again, much larger this time, flinging torn metal and doors beyond her position in a hailstorm of fire and debris.

She’s half deafened by the blast but turns to the tread of booted feet eventually noticed too close by. She rolls over to her back, gun now in both hands as she brings it up to fire but she’s a millisecond too late as cold blue lightening flashes followed by darkness.

 

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	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been so long since the last upload!
> 
> Warning for torture in this chap - sorry May.

Chapter 4

 

“Your leg needs treatment and you need to get warmed up. Can we please stop this chase and you just come back with us now?” the male asks when they both stand and start moving towards her. A decision has obviously been made. She’s been waiting long enough standing in the frosty air in her limited clothing whilst they’ve chatted away fairly happily in their suitable attire.

She glares at him in answer. She may not be a challenge for the two of them in her current state but she’s no intention of going down easy.

He sighs audibly before noticeably meeting the woman’s eyes. “Fine,” he says and she’s sure she can detect resignation in his tone.

The woman darts at her. She’s been expecting it since she first clocked the woman chasing her. She’s almost relived that they’re finally going to bring an end to this one way or another. As much as she doesn’t want to go back to the hell hole she escaped, she is tired of being chased. She throws the first punch but it’s blocked with the expected forearm. She follows up with an immediate strike to the body with her left. It doesn’t land. The woman has already dodged, twisting away from where her strike had been aimed. She spins right as a counter strike is flying at her head and ducks the follow up strikes before being forced to drop back. The woman is fast, very fast. And she’s good. 

She utilises a mixture of kick boxing and martial arts, switches almost seamlessly from one to the next. It’s a tactic she’s always used to good effect when fighting – fix on a clear fighting technique to lure your opponent into reacting based upon that technique then switch and take advantage of the lag as your opponent tries to catch up. She’s never been on this side of it before. It’s annoying. Even knowing what the woman is doing isn’t giving her the time she needs to adapt quickly enough.

The woman has seemingly all the advantage as she pushes her back with blow after blow: she’s taller, has the longer reach, seems faster possibly simply because she’s not been chased through the snow for hours, she doesn’t have the remnants of drugs lagging her system and she’s two uninjured legs and feet that she can use to take her whole weight making kicks and flips that much easier. But she’s avoiding taking the harder hits, the woman’s not taking advantage where she should to knock a knee out of place or twist an arm into dislocating. It gives her a slight edge knowing that the woman is playing it somewhat cautiously, still pretending. 

Always pretending. 

Except when they’re not.

They can’t keep up this level of engagement indefinitely. They’re both tiring. They’re blocking more than dodging now, exchanging blows in a cacophony of grunts and hisses. Then she has to let some of the strikes land, sacrificing a little pain in non-crucial areas to enable her to block other more crucial blows. The woman smirks at her, she knows the tide of this fight is turning in her favour, and it frustrates her all the more. 

She knows it’s done deliberately, knows the woman is goading her, trying to tempt her into reacting in haste, in anger or frustration. Just being aware of it doesn’t necessarily stop the effect.

The woman feints left, but strikes right suddenly without warning. She catches the feint at the last moment, throwing an elbow forwards to block but the woman’s arm isn’t where it’s expected. It’s a double feint she appreciates too late, and she despairs as she notes the sweeping kick headed to take out her legs. She has not the time to do anything to avoid the sweep. She knows she’s going down milliseconds before she feels her legs shift out from under her.

She is momentarily air borne and then… then she’s very much not as she hits the ground hard, wet snow soaking her further but doing very little to cushion the blow. She knows that she’ll be bruised in the morning. Bruises are the least of her troubles. 

The woman doesn’t hesitate to press her advantage, straddling her whilst she’s momentarily stunned and calling the male up to assist in her capture.

She bucks up, twists and throws her weight suddenly trying to displace the woman but she counters them all. It’s as though the woman knows her every move. It’s worrying, disheartening that she’s outclassed.

The male reaches up for one of her wrists, which reminds her that she’s not yet bound. The flicker of hope lends new power to her movements, she throws everything into her next attempt at flipping them but is forced roughly back down as the woman rides her back to the ground. She’s desperate as her hands reach up towards the woman’s face. The woman seems unaware of the danger as her hands fix heavily either side of the woman’s face, thumbs unerringly driving for the woman’s unprotected eyes. The woman rolls away suddenly, driving to escape her gouging thumbs but also loosing her in the process. The male takes no action as she drives herself up to her feet and flees once more.

 

At least momentarily.

Then her ankle hits something unseen, something uneven and between one step and the next she’s eating a face full of snow. 

The woman is upon her again almost instantly, grabbing at frozen hands to wrench them behind her back, whilst the male is securing them tightly with a cable tie before her senses come back to her enough to suggest she struggle. She knows that its futile as soon as she registers that her wrists are bound - the woman is far too well trained for her to get out of this hold with both wrists bound behind her and even if she did by some miracle manage to flip them there’s still the much larger and stronger man to contend with. She knows from previous incidents that he’s only feigning being untrained. She lets herself fall limply back to the snow, conceding defeat for just this moment. Grabbing a few seconds of the rest that her body desperately needs even if it is in the freezing cold snow.

The woman appears to need the rest as well as she moves her upper body to lie flat against her, pressing her further down into the wet ground. The woman’s warm breath dances across her right ear before she speaks.

“Time to go home, May.”

Her body shudders uncontrollably. There is no one thing she fears more than being returned ‘home.’

 

 

x

 

 

She wakes to the feel of cold steel on her wrists and ankles. Tight enough that the edges scrape hard into her skin - tight enough that she can’t escape. They must have a monitor on her because no sooner is she awake than there’s a voice greeting her.

“Welcome home, May,” the cocky smug voice can only be one person – Ward.

She hates him with a fiery passion for what he’s done to them, to her teammates. His betrayal has left them all scarred, some physically, some much more deeply.

“Ward,” she snarls at the seemingly empty room and as soon as she speaks the shielding goes clear showing him sitting relaxed in the single chair the other side. “Aren’t you dead yet?”

“Just waiting for someone to kill me,” he replies with that easygoing smirk he pastes on his face. It’s just another mask.

“I volunteer,” she can’t resist baiting him a little. After all he’s done to their team she would love to be the one to end him.

“Very generous but I think you’re friendlier tied down.”

“Afraid?”

“Cautious.”

“You should be. You can’t beat me,” she challenges straight up. It’s unlikely that she can rile him into making a mistake but she’s not many options available tied as she is.

“Well now, that is exactly what I intend to do,” he replies smugly. It’s not exactly a surprise given her current position.

“Last time you tried you killed your little sociopath girl friend.”

“You made me kill her,” is his reasoning. Excuses. Always with the excuses. My family was mean to me, my brother bullied me, my S.O. was hydra. Pathetic excuse for a human being.

“No one made you do anything, Ward. Take some responsibility for your own actions. We’ve all had problems to deal with. You’re pathetic,” she spits.

“You finished?” he asks almost politely.

“Don’t like being reminded of the people you’ve let down?”

“Let’s focus on you for a moment,” he says and he’s smiling again.

“Let’s not,” she snarls back. “Did Kara know you were a-”

The shield drops visibly from top to bottom interrupting her.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” she scoffs, knowing that her heart rate has sped up in anticipation of violence from him.

“No. This isn’t part of the torture to come. This is simply an eye for an eye. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to break you larynx just yet but we will come back to that don’t worry. First,” he says as he raises a nail gun from behind his back, “how many was it?”

Her heart rate speeds up outside of her control but she can control her outward reactions to the fear. She raises her head high in false bravado. This is really going to hurt. She purses her lips in refusal to answer, lets her eyes slit shut to glare directly ahead, refusing to acknowledge his slow approach. Oh yeah, this’ll hurt.

“I believe it was three,” he says quietly into the sudden silence. She can make out from the periphery of her vision that his head is tilted quizzically, considering her. “So, I’m giving you six as fair compensation.” 

She contains the shudder that wants to run down her frame at the feel of his breath brushing over her face and the threat. She’d love to be able to pull from these cuffs and deal him damage, but she already knows they’re far too tight for her to slip and she won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her struggle and fail. 

“You should be grateful to me really. I’m not even going to do your hands. I thought about it of course but at the end of the day I want you to be able to fight this a little or where’s the fun,” he asks rhetorically. He drops to one knee directly in front of her and she curses again at the bindings preventing her from kicking out at him. She doesn’t give in to the urge to look down at the threat; she won’t acknowledge what he’s intending to do. It should make it easier to distance herself from what’s happening. It doesn’t. 

“Are you ready?” he asks falsely congenial. She hates him. He seems to be waiting for an answer though, daring her to say something. She gulps. She’d really rather not torment him further; it’s never a good idea to push back against the torturers even if it feels good in the moment. It never ends well. “Of course, you could beg me not to... I don’t promise that I’ll listen but it-”

“Did you talk this much before you killed Kar-” she forces out through slightly gritted teeth but it ends on a bitten off scream as he send the first nail down through the top of her foot. Through the leather upper of her boot, through skin and flesh and tendons, through the hardened sole and into the concrete flooring below. It pins her in place as her body shakes trying desperately to pull away from the pain whilst her mind attempts to override the hysterical need to flee.

“That’s one May. Let me know when you’re ready for another,” he says and she knows he’s smirking that damn smug smirk at her again. 

She holds tight to her hatred, uses it to try to work through the pain. Pain is just an instinctive reaction, a warning of nerve endings to the brain not to get that part injured again. She can over ride it. She just... Argh! It hurts. It hurts so damn much! But she can do this. One puncture wound to the foot is hardly going to be the end of Ward’s torments. She needs to be stronger than this. She will give him nothing.

“Get on with it, Ward,” she snarls.

Then she screams.

 

X

 

 

“Hurts doesn’t it?” he asks directly up close in her face. She’s half hanging from the manacles now, sweat soaked hair sticking across her face but insufficient to allow her to hide from his gaze.

She swallows against a raw throat then scowls at the fact that she is forced to look up into his face. She refuses to give him the benefit of her avoiding his eyes – they’d both interpret that as a surrender.

He’s done all six she thinks. It’s been difficult to keep an accurate count. She hopes he’s done all six. Hopes he wasn’t lying about how many he intended. Then she laughs at herself for daring to hope that Ward of all people was telling a truth.

Short of an appropriate answer to the pain she spits at him, a mixture of blood and spit splattering across his face from her literally biting her tongue. She’s expecting the strike as he belts her backhanded and her head rocks against the wall. It’s her head that hits but it’s her feet that scream at her, the smallest of jarring motions shooting tracks of agony up her spine from the nails embedded through flesh. 

“So crass, May,” is all he says as she struggles to regain her composure, to _think_ through the blinding pain. He’s moved away, that much she can register, but he’s not gone long.

She closes her eyes to the sight of him carrying a battery back into the cell. She knows what’s coming even before he says “this is for Kara.” She can’t let him know how much this gets to her. She refuses to let him win at the first hurdle. She can handle the pain he throws at her. She _will_ handle it.

 

“If it’s revenge for Kara, bring me a gun and I’ll happily shoot you in the stomach for her,” she spits out meeting his too cocksure eyes.

“I hope you cry. Kara used to cry,” he discloses quietly, almost as though he was actually upset about another human being’s suffering. She doesn’t believe it for an instant. He sets up the battery on the adjacent bed, clipping cables in place on top and drawing the peeled ends up closer to her face. She refuses to shy away from it even as it crackles and sizzles lightly coming closer to her cheek. She glares directly at him, refusing to be cowed.

She cries as he wants when he touches the ends to her flesh. 

She can hear herself screaming over a raw throat almost as an independent observer. She can feel the press of the wall against her cheek, rough and cold, and knows that her body has flinched away from the pain, forced her head to turn in retreat as far as possible notwithstanding her mental intent to hold place. She tries to breathe through the tears as he backs away. Her body is out of her control as her chest heaves and she sobs and oh god the pain! The smell reaches her nostrils next, the smell of her own flesh burning. It fills the room, clogging her lungs until she can’t get a full breath. She hurls, bringing up whatever little she had eaten that morning, and gasps again. Trying to force her chest to move with some kind of rhythm that will allow her to regain the oxygen her body needs through the pain.

He watches her through it all and she’s no pretence left to hide behind. This hurts. That is all her mind can acknowledge right now.

His fingers grasp her chin, turning her head forcibly to face him until her pain-filled eyes find his own. “Now we’re even,” he says jovially. “I’ll let you think on that for today and tomorrow we can start the real welcome.

“It is _so_ good to be home.”


	5. Not so tough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry - more Ward being a bastard!
> 
> But we will get back to the (slightly) more pleasant present next chapter!

Chapter 5 – Not so Tough

She shivers. She blames the cold.

x

 

She’d spent the night shivering. 

Every shudder of her body jarring the nails in her feet. 

Streaks of lightning pain flash repeatedly across long ago worn out nerves. She can feel the tear tracks wet on her cheeks, the right side burns in mockery, edges of the wound indescribably painful but the burn itself numb – dead nerves her mind supplies.

It’s almost a blessing that her wrists are shackled to the wall up high. Without it she’d almost certainly have fallen, most likely have injured her feet further in the fall.

She’s thought about trying to pull her feet off the nails – the heads can’t be too much bigger than the nails themselves. One good painful jerk should do it. She can’t decide whether it’d be better to do it or not. Would it be less painful with the nails removed? Almost certainly. Would the bleeding increase? Almost certainly. Would she be better able to think and withstand whatever comes next with the nails removed or with increased blood loss? It’s a tossup her mind can’t quite work its way through.

Absent a clearly preferable course, she makes no decision. Well... her indecision results in a decision – the decision to do nothing, to leave the nails in place and avoid the consequences of more dramatic blood loss.

She shivers again – the cell is cold, colder than base cells are normally kept. Oh she knows that there are controls that deal with the climate in most Shield holding areas – what better way than to let a prisoner sweat it out than to actually let them sweat. Or to leave them feeling more vulnerable by reducing the temperature to a stage where they have to curl up with whatever blankets are provided.

She’s not been offered a blanket. Or the opportunity to curl up.

 

x

 

She assumes she’s withstood the night when the shield drops once again and he saunters back in to the cell. She knows better, though, than to assume anything. She doesn’t bother to look up to watch – he’s not worth her acknowledgement and she doesn’t want to see that smug smirk.

“Ah good, you’re already up. I wouldn’t have wanted to wake you.” He’s a smarmy bastard! As if she’s had even the possibility of getting any sleep after the injuries he’s inflicted keeping her body from rest even if her mind could succumb.

“Now that we’ve got all of that petty revenge garbage out of the way, we can move forwards properly,” he says as he wanders closer seemingly in no hurry to reach her position. Her body remains tense, poised on the edge of a violence she can’t execute, as he nears her position.

His hand on her chin forces her head up until she’s glaring at his eyes, wishing that the hatred she feels were able to manifest physically and cause him pain in return. His eyes are looking down at her face rather than meeting her gaze, running over the electrical burn he’s scalded into her flesh, her face a mockery of the mask that Kara wore to her death.

“Looks good,” he says, his eyes flickering briefly to meet her own, his lips smiling in response to her helpless anger.

“You like deformed women,” she snaps back. She’s fully aware it’s as much an insult to her current looks as to him.

“Don’t worry. I’m happy to lower my standards to you again,” he replies but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it as he turns away, crouching down at her feet. She tenses, heart racing in anticipation of pain as he considers her nailed boots carefully. She watches closely, unable to tear her eyes away as he pulls pliers from his back pocket.

“Let’s get those nails out shall we,” he asks rhetorically. He takes his time choosing the right grasp on the nail head, each slight bump shooting coils of agony through her but she holds her silence. She’s certain that it hurts more as each nail is dragged out than when they went in. She closes her eyes after the first one, keeps them tight shut throughout the rest. She can’t stand to watch as he glances up smiling just before he pulls each one. She bites her tongue... no, that’s a lie. She bites her bottom lip to keep from screaming. By the time he starts on the other foot she can taste the bitter iron of her blood from where she’s actually bitten through the skin.

She’s barely cognisant, or barely cares, when he switches to a knife. He cuts away stiff boots and blood drenched socks, then works around the manacles to remove the rest of her clothing.

She knows how this works. Torture 101 – make the captive feel vulnerable. She feels no more vulnerable naked than if she were in body armour. Her state of dress is only a concern as it relates to the temperature. It’s a lapse in judgement for him to assume it will have any effect on her mind.

It’s more than wet now underfoot. The blood half congealed now covered by more a watery flow as it gushes from reopened wounds. She was right not to attempt to remove the nails earlier. It’s not a thought that comforts her much as she watches the puddle spread across the concrete far faster than is safe.

It’s a bottle he pulls out next. Plastic – nothing she can break and hope to use as a weapon. She keeps in mind where he puts the knife. He pours the contents over her feet, something to aid coagulation she presumes as through the haze of re-flaring pain she can note objectively that the bleeding is slowing slightly. He raises her feet the centimetre the shackles allow and holds gauze compressing each end of the wound. Guess he doesn’t want her dead so soon. 

Once the bleeding slows to a point he’s content with Ward stands and waves. The shackles are released at the same time as the shield comes back in place. She assumes it’s caused by a third party monitoring the video feed. Ward’s many things but he’s not an idiot - he wouldn’t bring the ability to lower the shield into the cell with him. Especially not with her loose.

She attacks without hesitation. Without thought. 

She knows point blank that it’s a fight she will lose. She’s almost matched by Ward in a fair fight. There’s no way that she succeeds here in this prison, arms numb from extended elevation, feet almost unable to support her weight let alone move as required, body aching and tired mind lagging behind the speed she needs to bring to bear. 

She doesn’t care. This time it isn’t about winning, it’s about making the attempt. It’s about proving to herself that she is far from defeated by the injuries he’s inflicted . 

She loses too quickly when he spins her by an arm and slams her face into the wall, her cheek erupting in blinding agony that takes her too long to recover from. 

She’d like to think she’d planned it that way – deliberately loosing swiftly to mislead Ward into believing she’s worse off than she is, obfuscating the full effect of her injuries, lining him up to underestimate her and give her a chance at escape.

The sad fact is she’s not planned anything. Pain and frustration clouds what should be a calculating mind. She should be better than this, her own mind berates her as her head continues to swim.

She comes back to awareness with her hands already cuffed above her head, front to the wall this time, and knows it hopeless to even try to fight further just now. She still aims a kick back at him, which he easily catches “sloppy May”, but this time it’s intentional.

“I will kill you,” she spits out in an attempt to rile him. She knows he’s unlikely to fall for so simple a ploy, he’s training far better than that, but it’s the start of a long campaign to drive him into making a rash mistake. 

“Threats again, May. You really need to broaden your repertoire,” he replies as though bored, catching and securing each leg in turn back to the wall. She expects nothing less. He reapplies the gauze under her feet that has been loosened by their too brief fight but he does nothing to clear the puddle of her blood that she ends up standing back in the centre of.

“Promises,” she declares. 

It is a promise – to herself. 

 

“See that’s what I like about you May: even when you’re hopelessly outmatched you still try to put up the brave front,” Ward says and she can hear the smirk in his voice even as she lays her forehead against the cool stone and tries to ignore him.

“So, you know how this works. Let’s start with your initial “you have no power here” beating. It’s going to be harsh, of course, but then you’d expect nothing less would you?” he asks somewhat rhetorically as he walks back away, exiting the shielded area she can hear drop and re-engage a few seconds later. Yeah, she’d expect nothing less. They’ve had the same training, sat through similar lectures. Torture. The aims. The psychologies. The execution. 

The practical. 

From both sides.

 

He stops a good distance away... or more like a bad distance away.

A whip seems most likely given where his footsteps paused. Or a low calibre handgun. Darts maybe or small knives but those would give her a weapon in theory and he’s unlikely to take such a risk.

“Ten to warm you up then five for every insult.”

She tries to quickly modulate her breathing, bring control of her outward responses to the forefront of her mind. The lash is agony as it strikes a trail of fire down her back. But it’s better than bullet wounds, she tries to force her mind to think. Bullet wounds would need cleaning, would cause untold damage to her insides as well as the rest of her. Knowing Ward he’ll target non-crucial areas, make a game of taking out her muscles one at a time until she’ll be unable to fight or probably even raise her limbs.

The lash is better, she tries to think over the heat that erupts with each blow to her already burning back.

She’s not quite paying attention when he stops. Her mind is flying somewhere else... somewhere more pleasurable perhaps but more likely it’s simply sunk in the depths of pain than flying. It’s hard to think.

It takes him actually placing a hand to her back to bring her conscious thought back to the room – the cell – as her throat screams like it hasn’t during the whipping itself.

“Don’t tell me you’ve decided to play it smart, May. That would be an incredible disappointment so early in our games,” he near whispers into her ear. The head butt she tosses back without warning he dodges, unfortunately. “Ah good. I didn’t think so little would have taken the fight out of you!” he cheerfully boasts to the room at large on her behalf. She wonders idly whether he’s playing for an audience hidden away behind the cameras or whether the effort is just for her. He needn’t bother if it is.

“Psychopath,” she manages to spit out to the wall in front of her nose, resting her forehead back down and bracing for the continuation of the beating.

“No. Not really,” Ward replies, seemingly actually considering her off the cuff insult more deeply than she intended, “I prefer to think that I just fall outside your exceptionally narrow view of the world.”

“Spare me,” she snaps. It’s bad enough taking a beating from this lunatic, she doesn’t need to suffer through his melodramatic psychology lectures in addition.

“A plea for leniency from The Cavalry?” he’s quick to jump on it however her tone communicated her actual intent. “I thought it’d take us weeks to reach that point and here you are begging me to spare you already.”

“Can the psychobabble and get on with it, Ward!” she snaps back frustrated. She shouldn’t let him get to her like this, not so easily. The mention of her hated code name was deliberate, a taunt to shift her thoughts off balance. She cannot let it affect her like this. She can’t afford to give him that power.

“What makes you think that you’re in control of how this little game plays out?” he asks quietly. It’s no less threatening for the almost whisper it’s delivered in.

She takes a moment - let him think that his threat has made her hesitate but she needs the moment to gather her thoughts and make this come out right. “How about because you came in here to beat me but currently you’re not beating me and that’s because of what I’ve said rather than any decision you’ve made,” she says equally quietly, “seems to me that I am in control right now.”

Then she twists, despite the pain such act of moving her burning skin and shifting weight between her injured feet, and looks back over her shoulder forcing a smile to her lips as he stands looking a little confused. He pulls himself together within milliseconds of realising she’s turned and watching him, smirking back, cocky attitude restored or at least the facade back in place.

“Back to the beating then?” he asks rhetorically, stepping backwards to an appropriate distance and shaking out the whip in hand.

She turns back to face the wall, bracing herself for the pain to come as best she can.

It’s excruciating.

There is no let up in the rhythmic pain inflicted save for the too brief pauses into which she manages to choke out whatever insult comes to her bedraggled mind. She could drag the pauses out for longer sure but her pride won’t let her do that – she won’t concede even that she needs more recovery time between the strikes to this lunatic.

She loses track of how many hits she’s taken very early on. It doesn’t appear to matter anyway. He’s promised to continue whilst ever she spits out insults.

If she had some sense then she might hold off, she might choose to remain silent to avoid the pain and restrict the damage being inflicted to her body. She still needs to be able to walk out of here if she’s to escape.

But she knows this is just the first of many tortures to come.

If she stops now, if she lets him think he’s won so easily...

She can’t do it.

It’s stupid and it’s arrogant and it’s not at all the best tactical response they’ve been trained to follow... but she won’t stop fighting back. She won’t stop breathing out these insults that say she is still fighting.

Eventually her body gives out. It gives out seconds before her mind stops working. She’s barely conscious as she feels hands grasping her hair, dragging her head up on a limp neck. 

“Not so tough after all.”

 

 

x


End file.
